Nightcrawler

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Dan Gilroy/Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Bill Paxton and Riz Ahmed

We've grown accustomed to seeing Jake Gyllenhaal in films where he is confronted by creepy characters or situations. Donnie Darko, Zodiac and this year's Enemy are but a few that come to mind. In Nightcrawler, Gyllenhaal has the rare opportunity to actually play a creep. And as he takes on this new career challenge, he proves he is quite adept at playing a character who gets under one's skin.

His character, Louis Bloom, reminds me somewhat of Robert DeNiro's Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver; he is humorless and earnest and when he tries to sustain an ordinary conversation, he is awkward and more than just a little unnerving. And like Travis Bickle, you know something dark, angry and maybe violent is seething beneath a deceptively self-possessed demeanor.

When we first see Louis, he is using a bolt cutter to remove a chain link fence near some train tracks. When he is confronted by a security guard, Louis offers a feeble excuse about being lost. His gaze rests on a watch the security guard wears, which he covets. After the guard scoffs at Louis' reason for being on the premises, he is attacked brutally. We see the outcome of the melee in the next scene, as Louis sports the security guard's watch.

After selling his scrap metal to an unscrupulous buyer, Louis comes upon a crash scene on an L.A. freeway. He stops to find two police officers trying to extricate an injured driver from a car. He also sees a cameraman, Joe Loder (Bill Paxton) filming the scene. Louis learns Joe is capturing footage of the crash to sell to local T.V. news stations. While Joe is in his van gathering his camera equipment for his next opportunity, Louis approaches him and asks if he might need help. Joe gives him the brush-off but it is obvious from Louis' eyes as he watches the van pull away that the incident has made an impact on him.

After seeing Joe's footage on the local news, he sets out to buy his own camera and to fund his new found enterprise, he steals a bicycle to sell to a pawn broker. Unable to get his preferred price for the bike, he instead trades for a home video camera and a police scanner.

Louis then tries his hand at capturing his own footage when his police scanner leads him to a crime scene involving domestic violence. He boldly approaches the epicenter of the scene as police officers tend to a bleeding victim. Louis aggressively thrusts his camera over the victim to capture grisly footage. After the police force him back, Louis returns to his car but not before a rival cameraman vents his frustration at him for thwarting his own attempts to film.

Later that evening, Louis visits a local T.V. station, intending to sell his modest footage. He meets a producer named Nina Romina (an excellent Rene Russo) who buys his footage for a modest fee. Though Nina's colleague has reservations about the footage being appropriate for television, she is hardly troubled or disturbed by the video. Her focus on ratings leaves her blind to ethical considerations.

Nina encourages Louis to find more footage and to consider her first when marketing it, to which he agrees. An unholy partnership forms; both parties hungry for success and willfully oblivious to scruples.

At this point in the film, we've grown accustomed to Louis' bizarre chatter about success, which he drones about in a robotic fashion. He is happy to offer his views to anyone who will listen, including Nina.

As Louis submits more footage, he hires a young apprentice named Rick (Riz Ahmed); a down and out homeless person with a shaky work history. Excited by Louis' offer of employment, he too listens to his employer's clinically expressed ideas about business.

As the footage sales climb, Louis upgrades his vehicle to a brand new muscle car and acquires new camera equipment and a computer to edit his videos. And as the two men become experienced in the ways of filming, Louis becomes more ambitious and even less concerned about how he gathers his footage.

Flush with success, he invites Nina out to dinner one night. While she considers the dinner something strictly professional, Louis interprets it as something romantic. When Nina rebuffs his amorous intentions, Louis reminds her how his footage has been instrumental in reviving her career while also making subtle, unkind comments about her age and the fact that her professional life has been sporadic. He also makes demands for higher footage fees and more brazenly, insists she introduce him to the news production staff. Nina is repelled by his aggressive, roughshod tactics but is subtly taken by his initiative. Louis is the reflection she sees looking back at her in the mirror.

Louis' ambition and his shockingly unethical approach to his work lead him to an incident he cunningly manipulates for his own gain, which involves filming a murder in progress. Rather than turn over evidence which might incriminate the assailants, he withholds it to prolong potential money-making opportunities. In a unconscionable attempt to collect the reward on the suspects and film the footage of their arrest, he follows them after learning their whereabouts from the license plate number in his footage. His plan leads to a deadly shoot-out and a car-chase that ends fatally for several parties. But it is what he films that heralds his descent into total ethical and moral bankruptcy.

The film ends cynically; not only will Louis will remain impervious to arrest and prosecution, he will also prosper.

Gilroy's story is taut and bleak and wonderfully plotted. It is easy to see how a sociopathic opportunist like Louis might easily find success via the news media, with its declining standards of taste and integrity.

Gyllenhaal keeps the audience on edge with his portrayal of Louis' unpredictable, menacing personality. Gyllenhaal's wide, alert eyes are a perfect vehicle for conveying an eagerness to learn (which he accomplishes with disturbing ease and speed) and a dangerous volatility. Rene Russo is the biggest surprise in the film. Her world-weariness and insecurities are worn on her face like lacerations. She is smart but we see that years of working in the news media has left her with a mercenary attitude toward her job, which is finely attuned to ratings imperatives. She and Louis are simpatico in their approach to their work. I don't think I've seen a better performance from Russo. Her career has mostly been relegated to Hollywood-movie-babe roles where all that was asked of her was to smirk and look sexy. Here she shows a range and a darkness I didn't think she had.
Riz Ahmed was also quite good as the conscience Louis so sorely needs but appallingly lacks.

The film makes a powerful and pessimistic point about American opportunism; its intolerance for competition and its debilitating effect on character. It also says something about how the capitalist system abets the unethical agendas of those who see illicit conquest as a means to success.

Nightcrawler might leave you feeling like you need a good scrubbing with hot water and soap. But it is also an intriguing film; one that left me hoping life doesn't always resemble the grim make believe on movie screens.